Checkout lanes at retail store locations like grocery stores present risk of loss for retailers during each customer checkout process at those retail stores. Shopping carts are typically designed to comprise a basket and a lower tray. The lower tray is often used for large items such as laundry detergent, boxed canned beverages, packaged sets of paper towels, and/or bags of pet food. Relatedly, items placed on the lower tray of a shopping cart often have a higher than average price per unit compared to items that are typically placed in the basket of the shopping cart.
Currently, retail store clerks operating a checkout lane are limited in their tools to evaluate shopping carts entering into a checkout lane. Clerks (or cashiers) often have easy visibility into the basket itself; however, clerks have less visibility into whether there are items on the lower tray of the shopping cart. While baskets to shopping carts can have wire framing that permit a person to see through to the lower tray, that view to the lower tray becomes obstructed by objects in the basket from a top-down view. Additionally, clerks are often stationary at the checkout lane's register without an opportunity to move around the checkout lane to establish a more direct line of sight with the lower tray to check for any items on the lower tray.
This limitation on the clerk's ability to move for a more direct line of sight can result from a variety of reasons, including a need to checkout items as quickly as possible due to high volumes of customers and/or a need or pressure to not imply a distrust of the customers checking out through the checkout lane. As a result, retail store locations can, and often do, experience losses from unidentified items passing through checkout lanes on the lower trays of shopping carts, whether due to customers failing to remember items are on the lower trays or customers intentionally avoiding payment obligations for such items.